When Liberty Alice (Ibby) Bell's father dies in 1964, shortly before Ibby's 12th birthday, she is rather unceremoniously left to live with her paternal grandmother, Fannie. The New Orleans home in which Ibby finds herself is peopled by her crazy grandmother, her grandmother's cook, Queenie Trout, and Dollbaby, Queenie's adult daughter. Having been kept from her father's family by her mother, as well as living far from the South, Ibby has to learn about Southern traditions while trying to navigate the minefields of Fannie's memories, which have a tendency to send Fannie to the nuthouse down the road. Queenie and Dollbaby prove to be good guides, though family secrets seem to spill out of every corner. Tragic history and long-held secrets mix with the racial tensions of the time, and Ibby learns that family is where you find it.
I enjoyed this book, and found myself comparing it favorably to
The Help and
To Kill a Mockingbird. I did find myself getting hungry, reading about all the wonderful food Queenie makes!
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